Just 16, Newbury rapper clocks up 10k streams on Spotify, 20k views on YouTube

Sixteen-year-old rapper/singer Twee from Newbury is growing an audience very fast through featuring on BBC Radio Berkshire and being noticed by big names like Promoting Sounds – which has 2.6 million subscribers on the platform YouTube.

He has almost 10,000 streams on Spotify with his song Idek Lol and has almost 20,000 views all together on YouTube.

Twee – Tristan Jones – who is currently a student at Reading College and went to St Barts school, has always preferred the US side of rapping to the UK style because, he feels, “in the UK it’s very much more drill and street rap, whereas in the US you can have more fun with it, which has made me more true to myself and more unique”.

Thanks to one of his college teachers’ radio station contacts, his music got on to BBC Radio Berkshire which he says “helped me a lot”.

Twee started singing/rapping around 2020, in the first lockdown, and he released his first song, Bumpin, on Soundcloud and YouTube in April-time and it really took off.

“I was getting about 5,000 streams in under the first week of it being released, which was crazy to me cause no one my age was actually making those numbers.

“I have felt like ever since I started rapping, a lot more rappers/singers around my age have come out of the shadows, like I started a wave of people starting music in Newbury.

“But the main message I want people to hear from my music is that I am so different compared to UK artists because I do what I wanna do and, no matter what anyone says, I do me and that’s what I want people to try to do, because you don’t need to act like you’re from the streets to be who you wanna be.”

Twee grew up listening to a lot of the Soundcloud Era – artists like Juice WRLD, Ski Mask The Slump God, SoFaygo and SSGKOBE and some UK artists like SL, Digga D and Fredo.

“But at the moment it’s quite unusual,” he says, “because I listen to a lot of drum and bass.”

Of course Twee is looking to making a career of music. “Yeah obviously music has been a dream of mine and I would love to see how far I can go in the future.

“The airtime on the radio was sick and I hope I will be able to build off that high.

“One of my ambitions is to try and change the UK industry by bringing a new sound here,” he says.

It certainly looks like he will make his mark.